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00:02
Any suggestions for a Bradbury story which is accessible to a 9 year old?
I'm thinking "The Veldt" might work...
00:56
I just found my father's "Rate My Professor" page. It is a work of art.
> This is one strange bird. Others say he's an old hippy. I can't see how that is a good thing.
> His quizzes are difficult & tricky. Its like he plays mind games & deliberately tries to trick you.
 
4 hours later…
04:42
@XanderHenderson You are clearly somebirdy.
Oh I missed that it's your father, not you. So change "You are" to "He is". =P
05:22
@XanderHenderson my favorite from my own: "Looks like Genghis Kahn and writes quizzes like him too"
2
06:13
@AlexanderGruber Interesting.
> Alex, honestly is a strange, yet interesting individual. In discussion section, he doesn't quite make as much sense as much as he does if you actually go to office hours. HE IS AMAZING IN OFFICE HOURS.
 
7 hours later…
13:22
@AlexanderGruber Fantastic!
@XanderHenderson Do you have one?
14:11
I don't know... I've never looked.
It seems that I do.
>Overall, he's extremely quirky, but generally a good lecturer.
14:39
Is there a ratemymoderator?
15:13
@XanderHenderson What on earth does "He spared us a $70 online code to do homework" mean?
Nice website about rating professors (I am not in academia so really no idea that such sites exist). Now It would be interesting to read feedback about some of the mathse users.
@ParamanandSingh Lol. There are plenty of 'feedback' from cranks complaining on other websites that Math SE does not accept all their 'wonderful' and 'ground-breaking' math.
And also those who can't get their homework done on Math SE as easily as on other websites.
@user21820 What does a 'crank' mean?
@quid: ratemymoderator, that sounds interesting. But won't it create some sort of hierarchy in mod team based on rating?
@Safdar To me it means someone that refuses to learn when an expert in the relevant field tries to teach them. There is a spectrum, and some are only cranky in one field but not in others.
There are also symptoms of crankery:
37
Q: Spotting crankery

EugeneUnderwood Dudley published a book called mathematical cranks that talks about faux proofs throughout history. While it seems to be mostly for entertainment than anything else, I feel it has become more relevant in modern mathematics. Especially with the advent of arXiv, you can obtain research pa...

And prototypical examples are trisectors, and generally cranks almost always attack impossibility results.
15:27
@ParamanandSingh I imagined it more in a lighthearted way.
@quid: Ok here is the thing, no one is take my messages seriously unless they are about maths.
After all this room is for light discussions
Indeed.
@user21820: mathse is not really about getting feedback on ground breaking results. Maybe they can try contact some well known journals
15:44
@ParamanandSingh Indeed. I always suggest they submit to vixra if they ask.
The "difficulty" on ratemyprofessors is about the courses being difficult or the person teaching th courses being difficult to deal with?
@ParamanandSingh It is about the student having difficulty with the course. =P
Looks like MSE people are teaching really difficult courses. Perhaps only grad courses (they are bound to be difficult).
My experience is mostly from reading some GTM series books from Springer.
Ratemyprofessor used to have a "chili pepper" rating which was how hot the professor was but they dropped it in 2018 under pressure from MeToo
@AlexanderGruber: good decision for ratemyprof. Too personal feedback should be avoided in professional environment.
15:52
How many people here play chess for fun? (Sorry it's just a random question.)
@ParamanandSingh still can't believe the number of comments i got on my appearance in written student evaluations through the university
@user21820 i used to, but then i got a national master for a roommate and got trounced so hard so many times that i only play at parties now
@user21820: chess turned out to be too difficult a game for me. I never won any so I quit.
@AlexanderGruber Ooh. I used to have a national player as a classmate when I was 11 years old. I won only once when he wasn't thinking hard. It was so fun. Then we went to different schools.
@ParamanandSingh I don't particularly fancy chess, actually. I prefer Go and Hex. But almost nobody plays those, so I just take a look at what people play.
@AlexanderGruber: I checked your page on university of Florida. I am sure the comments on your appearance were mostly positive. You should put that pic in your mathse profile. Disclaimer my own pic on mathse profile is rather outdated by 10 years.
@user21820 last time me and toby played we had been drinking and he was pretty far ahead of me so I was sure I would get him this time. He was taking like half a second to make moves and talking with other friends who were over. Still destroyed me, it was like he was playing a child lol
15:58
Lol.
I suppose you would trounce me.
@ParamanandSingh but then people would know I am not really a 4000 year old chinese emperor
@user21820 go is a fun game too. But I'm bad at it.
@AlexanderGruber I'm bad at it too. I just find the game structure more fascinating as the tactics are very much less ad hoc.
@AlexanderGruber GO is the way to go! ;D
16:03
@amWhy do you play too?
@AlexanderGruber Occasionally. And chess, occasionally.
I remembered you played some chess.
Maybe we need a math.se open.
I played a lot more chess in grad school, in St. Louis, which seems to be a chess hot-spot in the States.
@AlexanderGruber That would be fun!
@AlexanderGruber Great idea! I might participate, if only because I would be last in any other chess contest. (At least on Lichess, I keep losing when playing blitz with a random player.)
Well lets see we need at least 4 people for a tournament i think
16:10
ONE-SYLLABLE words that rhyme with SAY, e.g., HEY!
BAY
The best month of all: MAY
HAY
PRAY and PREY!
DREY
STAY
That reminds me of GREY and GRAY
16:13
A RAY
WEIGH and WAY and WHEY
NEIGH
THEY
STRAY
DAY also works here.
@ParamanandSingh Indeed, "Oh happy DAY"!!
16:15
That's all I can think of right now
SLEIGH SLAY
@ParamanandSingh Keep PLAYing! (Hint: word that begins with TR)
LAY
You should not have hinted anyway TRAY
FRAY
There is also GAY, but I don't know if that's admissible here.
SWXX
NAY
16:20
YAY
@user21820 ;D
CLAY
SPRAY
@user21820 Good one!
SWAY
This is getting tough
@ParamanandSingh Maybe we can expand into only two syllable words that rhyme with SAY, e.g., OBEY
16:23
REPLAY
@AlexanderGruber Yupster!
ANYWAY
@user21820 RELAY DELAY
16:25
@amWhy OVERLAY
@user21820 We're on two syllable words now
VERLAY then.
=P
Gourmet chalet
@AlexanderGruber Thinking of food, eh?
@AlexanderGruber Awesome!
FILET
16:26
BUFFET (the one with food)
STRAY
Will OKAY count?
ENTREE
@ParamanandSingh Indeed it will!
RENE DESCARTES
ALLAY
REPAY
I was typing that allay @amWhy. Late
16:29
HEARSAY
DECAY
ASSAY
PREPAY
PUPAE
What's the date TODAY?
16:31
MONDAY, **TUESDAY, THURSDAY
HEYDAY
FRIDAY SUNDAY SUNDAE
HIGHWAY
PATHWAY
16:34
MY-WAY!! ;D
SURVEY
CONVEY
PURVEY
FOREPLAY (Just had to add it!: It's a rehearsal of a play!)
16:38
NO-SAY
MAINSTAY
NO-WAY!!
PARLAY
ASTRAY. ARCHWAY
CROCHET BOUQUET
Who will @quid PORTRAY Today?
HOORAY!!
If @quid is too late, his suggestion might DECAY
I hope in that case, that @quid does not go AWAY.
Instead, @quid can write an ESSAY for all of us in this room, using as many of the words we came up with today, as is possible.
17:12
@amWhy no worries. I dissent with some words above though.
@quid Then I want your essay! (This requirement will be fulfilled when you write a sensible ESSAY using 50% of the above words, or more! ;D)
@amWhy I'll think about it.
@quid You could be very clever about this, with minimum time invested, hint hint ;D
"On this beautiful Sunday a few users came together to play a game. The goal was to name certain words. Many words were named: {liste here}. The end." :-)
@quid: that was very clever!!
17:23
@quid That's the idea!! (I want to see that list, though!) ;P
@quid Else I'll have to add one more word to the list: DISMAY
@amWhy that's boring work. I'll do something more fun later maybe. Also you should be called amWay today. :-)
@quid ;D
I'll leave now for a bit. See you all!
@quid C U!
18:06
@AlexanderGruber, @quid, @Xander .. I've already flagged for mod attention, but an anonymous user has made 9 consecutive attempts to edit an answer (of mine, which I've flagged). I don't want to spend the next few hours rejecting their flags. PLEASE HELP?
@amWhy That's unfortunate. We now belong to a set of cardinality at least 3 whose members' posts have been vandalized anonymously.
@user21820 This has happened to me before, and I've had to resort to asking mods to lock my answer (they can only do so for 7 days). This is crazy.
Yea it happened to us before. But this (recent) one is particularly abusive, right?
Left abusive edit messages on my posts, the worst of which a moderator erased.
Someone who has a username, you can be sure, on this site, resorts to being a coward to vandalize "off the record". I just don't get it. I just don't get how this is tolerated.
@user21820 Me too shakes head in pity for the cowards
Tanks to the mod who handled my recent flag!
 
1 hour later…
19:31
I'll check @amWhy
@quid In this current case, the edit suggestions did not amount to vandalism, but despite seven or eight rejected edits in the course of 20 minutes, they persisted to try yet again.
@quid My answer is now frozen until tomorrow, so no edits can persist, until after then.
@amWhy yes I saw it. The flag had been handled already by somebody else.
@quid Yes, that's why I said "Tanks to the mod who handled my recent flag" (Daniel Fischer, I've since learned).
Indeed, I did not read the while transcript before replying.
@quid while = whole? ;P Thanks for checking it out, @quid!
19:43
@amWhy actually I meant to say "vile" ;D
@quid Hah! ;D (Good one!)
@quid Actually, I don't think there are many words with W, H, and L in them.
Howler.
@quid Yay!
WHEEL
WHISELY
HALLOW
@quid define? Kind of looks like Whiskey or Wisely
HOLLOW
19:49
@amWhy I meant the latter.
WHISTLE
WHISTLEBLOWER
HELLOW??
SHALLOW
HOW LOW can you go?!!
homeworklike
@quid We get lots of those on this site! ;D
@amWhy indeed.
@quid As well as the occasional HOLLOW answers.
HOLLOWEEN
The last word was misspelled by me: Should be HALLOWEEN
20:02
I thought it was a creation.
@quid Well it is; it's the day after Halloween, when everyone feels HOLLOW, due to eating too much candy on Halloween!
@amWhy shouldn't they feel full?
I thought of another two-syllable word that rhymes with "SAY": FORTE
@quid Full of junk, but hollow of healthy food!
@amWhy I'm really against this rhyming but I suppose you are right.
I guess you're right, it should have an accent over the E.
QUE (por que?) DE (De donde esta, Usted).
20:13
I think that's a different e though.
I think that in Spanish is actually the same e as in forté in French.
The spanish E? Es pronounced like the A in Amy, or as in FILET, BUFFET....
@amWhy but then it doesn't rhyme with say?
Actually what I said about forte is wrong, it's not of French origin.
The Spanish que has just an "e" the IPA is "ke" by contrast the IPA of say is "seɪ"
@quid spanishdict.com/answers/205620/how-is-e-pronounced It seems there is variation. But you make a good point.
For "filet" I guess it depends a bit. The English pronunciation is like say apparently but the original one is this ɛ
which is the e in wet, melody etc.
20:33
@quid Creo que hay varios dialectos en todos los idiomas, incluso en el inglés que se habla en los Estados Unidos. Por ejemplo, mi primo Donny en CA, nosotros en WI lo pronunciamos como "Dah-nee", mientras que los primos lo pronunciamos como "Daw-nee".
Yes, that's no doubt the case.
@quid You seem to understand quite a fair bit of Spanish?
@amWhy maybe I gambled... no I can somewhat read it.

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